The Statue

What’s the oldest thing you own? (Toys, clothing, twinkies, Grecian urns: anything’s fair game.) Recount its history — from the object’s point of view.

My previous owner told her that I could only be held by a man, and sometimes she remembers that, moving me about the coffee table – if I happen to stray – using a towel so her fingers don’t touch me at all. Though sometimes, she just says, eh, whatever, and manhandles me so she can return me to the same spot where she last remembered placing me.

I originally came from Thailand, and according to the piece of paper taped to the back of me, I’m a hand-carved stone statue of the Buddha, and I’m about 250-300 years old. A woman named Kathryn who lives in California was gifted with me when she stayed with a family somewhere in northern Thailand over fifty years ago. Years later, she sent me all the way to Chicago – to the man’s granddaughter – but she didn’t want me. Maybe it had to do with the fact that she couldn’t touch me – her being a woman. Or maybe because she knew more about me than my current owner does.

So I ended up with a woman who calls herself, at least online, Morrighansmuse. She has me hidden behind a picture of the Guadalupe, right behind a wooden Kwan Yin statue from Bali and a crystal frog (for luck). She really isn’t that religious but I hear the Catholic stuff are all gifts from her brother and mother-in-law who go to church everyday. She, on the other hand, prefers to pray to the Buddha, though sometimes she prays to nature, too. She’s well versed with mantras and all that, words that still sound familiar to me so many years later.

And though sometimes she remembers not to touch me with her bare hands, for she is no man, today, she did just that today. Touched me, turned me over so she could see where I came from and write it out for this prompt – written from my point of view, of course. I can’t blame her though, for she means no disrespect.